The spies who trained me: One day in the life of a secret agent

SPY TRAINING: The wannabe spies are put through their paces by martial arts and weapons expert Lee [PH]

SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH AN EXCLUSIVE CLIP OF 'THE AMERICANS'

For a lot of people James Bond and Jason Bourne are as cool as it comes but after spending a day training to be a secret agent, I have a new found admiration for the people who really do dedicate their life to intelligence gathering.

One day of honey trapping, bag dropping and knife disarming was pretty exhausting - spending 30-plus years doing it must be a whole other thing.

My day begins with a briefing in a "secret location" in the heart of London's West End.

Well, it was really just an office in Soho but you get the picture.

BRIEFING: The day began with a quick briefing and a viewing of hit TV show The Americans [PH]

HIDE THE SUITCASE: The trainee spies are given an insight into the world of bag dropping [PH]

A select group of "candidates" are given a quick run-through of the day before we are ushered into a room with a table full of gadgets.

We are then introduced to Dave Thomas, possibly the coolest man I've ever met.

Dave was in the SAS and operated during the height of the Cold War in Berlin.

He tells us how he and his fellow operatives would regularly go undercover into Soviet-controlled East Germany to gather intelligence on Russian troop movements and positions.

While we listen intently, Dave, who runs Spy Games, the company behind the day's activities, passes around the gadgets to illustrate how MI6 and other agencies have progressed from giant tape recorders to tiny cameras which can be concealed in coffee cups.

LISTENING IN: A shot of the various surveillance gadgets spies have used over the years [PH]

SECRET AGENT: Former SAS operative Dave Thomas provides an insight into the world of espionage [PH]

Before long we are sent on our first mission, a honeytrap operation in a busy West End bar.

To say we are all terrified would be an understatement. We've been ordered to gather a ton of info from at least one person in the bar.

And it is pretty weird info such as their full name, post code, phone number, favourite place and names of their pets.

Not the sort of details you happily hand out to strangers let alone ones who are being photographed and video recorded!

The honey trapping goes surprisingly well even though myself and Alan, the 006 to my 007, manage to find the one group of people in the bar who were not planted there.

Following that is the bag dropping exercise in which we rehearse swapping identical black briefcases in the middle of Leicester Square.

We are reliably informed that this method of information transfer is still used around the world even despite the huge technological advances in spy technology.

The highlight of the day was unquestionably the hour-long training session with Lee, a man who in his own words had learned pretty much every form of martial art there is.

MISSION: Two spies get down to "work" on the honeytrap mission [PH]

EYE ON YOU: Can you spot the hidden camera? [PH]

TRAINING: The group get warmed up for a knife combat session [PH]

The main focus of the session is on knife combat and in particular how to disarm someone who is out to stab you.

Lee reveals that in a 21-ft area, a knife will beat a gun almost every time. And judging by the scars on his arms no one is going to argue with him.

After nearly an hour we have finally mastered the art of one of the simplest disarms.

DISARMED: The spies learned how to properly disarm a knifeman in true Jason Bourne style [PH]

Thanks to Lee, who decided to use me to help him demonstrate one of his many moves, my arms ache in about 14 different places.

The reason we have put ourselves through this is in preparation for the release of the first season of The Americans on DVD.

Set during the Cold War it tells the story of Elizabeth, played by Keri Russell, and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) as two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American couple living in Washington D.C.

The series has won rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic with one reviewers writing: "The Americans isn't just a heart-pounding action drama; by presenting heroes that are also villains, it also confronts viewers with TV's deepest moral dilemma since The Sopranos."

And after one day trying to pretend to be something I'm not I think I'll leave the spy game to the professionals.

SCENE: The Bond-esque bar where some of the world's worst honeytraps took place [PH]

MUST WATCH: The first season of The Americans is out on Monday March 3 [PH]

The Americans is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 3rd March from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment